Coastal Fishing
The use of fish traps built on the foreshore, called hedge baulks (balks or bauks), was a common method of catching fish. Fixed traps existed on the River Lune in medieval times until the late 20 th century, and surviving property deeds exist for some of the numerous Morecambe baulks which prove their origins at least as far back as the 18th century.
Long V-plan 'hedges' were built on the shelving foreshore. They were made of rocks and strong oak posts bound together with hazel branches to create walls which, on the ebb tide, funnelled the fish into a net bag in which they were trapped. At low tide the fish were often collected from the shallow pools behind the bag using a hand net. The best surviving baulk can be found at Cockerham and was associated with Cockersands Abbey nearby.
Each arm of the baulk could be up to 300 yards long and the net cages which trapped the fish at the apex of the structure could accommodate a huge catch. This sometimes ran into thousands of herring, whitebait, codling, plaice and any other fish swimming inshore. Sometimes they even caught seals, large sturgeon and even swordfish.
